06/27/2026
Noma LA 2026 Part 1/3 - Naïveté
Prestige - Resonance - Respect
In 2025, Bee Leaf USA was contacted by two chefs (Coleman Griffin and ) in search for purely sourced “Bee Products”…not just honey, but something more elusive. After the initial conversation it was revealed that these gentlemen were members of Rene Redzepi World Famous Copenhagen based fine dining establishment called, Noma (noma) and were in charge of sourcing local ingredients.
Knowing little of the fine dining scene, we called (personal friend who has training in fine dining) and Cole was awestruck. This clarified how precious of an opportunity we had encountered and that we were in a once in a lifetime position to work with the finest culinary team, possibly on Earth.
Immediately, myself and the bee team began researching all we could learn about Noma and their global pop-ups. After continuing to unpack the vision, we learned that these chefs were not seeking a specific product, program, or anything that we are used to providing. Rather, they simply wanted raw, unique, and exotic natural materials to tell a story.
In October of 2025, we then visited the Paramour Estate in Silverlake, Los Angeles, where the pop-up was to be held. We toured the space looking for places we could place beehives on property and after countless hours of working our first proposal, it was not accepted. However, understanding the level of perfection that accompanies Noma, we scrapped the proposal and tried again without batting an eye. In fact, we tried a significant number of times and each time we’re thanked profusely for the attention, care, and overall effort to making it work. We assured them that in the same way the chefs of Noma prioritize a dish’s perfection, scrapping a proposal as many times as required to fulfill the vision was our pleasure, and it truly was.
This is when we began to understand that we were not working with “chefs” but we were working with artists in the finest sense of the word. Artists who strive for excellence, compassion, and kindness. The interactions with their team were an obvious reflection of leadership, despite old news resurfacing.
